Alonso was quickest in the disrupted second practice session. He snatched second on the grid from his team mate at the end of qualifying by less than two hundredths of a second.

He made a concerted effort to pass Sebastian Vettel at the start of the race, but after that dropped back from the Red Bull.

Alonso took the plunge and switched to intermediate tyres on lap 17, while Massa did not. Although he picked off Nick Heidfeld on his first lap out of the pits, two laps later he was back in for wets as the rain returned.

When the race resumed after the two-hour interruption, Alonso was down in ninth.

He pitted for intermediates again on lap 36, losing more time having to queue behind his team mate, and came out in front of Jenson Button.

Button went down the inside of him at turn three and the pair banged wheels, sending Alonso spinning onto a kerb where his Ferrari became stuck, ending his race.

Afterwards he said: “it?óÔé¼Ôäós a real shame because today we really had a good race pace but we were unlucky: that?óÔé¼Ôäós not a feeling I have, it?óÔé¼Ôäós a fact”.

He pitted for slicks on the next lap but spun the car on his out-lap, damaging his front wing and having to pit again.

Now down in 12th, Massa worked his way up into the points. In the final six laps he passed Jaime Alguersuari and Nico Rosberg to take seventh.

Accelerating out of the final corner he used his DRS to beat Kobayashi to the line by 0.045s to claim sixth. Even so, he was unhappy with the result:

“I can?óÔé¼Ôäót draw much satisfaction from this sixth place, given the potential we had here.

“My chances of finishing on the podium and also of fighting for the win given how things went, just evaporated when I was passing [Narain] Karthikeyan . He was going very slowly on the dry line but then, as I was passing him on the wet, he accelerated and I lost control of the car ending up in the wall.

“Thanks to the next safety car, I was able to catch up to the pack and then, in the end, I passed a few cars to get as high as sixth. I am angry, there is no point denying it”.

given what massa has recovered from it’s a bit eccentric to suggest he should retire…however if he wasn’t so willing to play second fiddle to alonso ferrari wouldn’t accept his performances so far this year…but he was closer to alonso in qualy and quicker in race pace while FA was on track this weekend

Now I understand where the fuss about lapped acrs comes from. Massa had to go on the damp part of the track to lap Karthikeyan, thus crashing. It would be even common sense by the back-marker to get out of the way and let the others race, as he is going to get lapped anyway.

I think you guys are being quite unfair to Narian… He’s trying to make a race for himself as well… Yeah sure it wasn’t his best moment, but it was a long way from the silliest thing a driver has done this weekend.

1)Brake hard and overtake the HRT in the following corner
2)Try to pass on the left, extremely close to the wall, where it was drier
3)try to pass on the right, where there was space, but horribly slippery

Option 2 wasnÂ´t really an option as it would be too tight. Neither was option 1 as he’d lose valuable time. So option 3 it was, which turned out to be too dangerous. In hindsight option 2 would have been the best, which is wrong, because a car being lapped should never force a lapping car to slow down. Felipe was very unlucky, and the incident cost him a very likely podium.

Real shame because on paper Ferrari had the best race pace in dry conditions in FP2.

Even so they were well positioned to grab a podium for sure – even a win was not out of sight with the track drying up towards the end.

I seriously don’t know why Alonso took the gamble of intermediates on lap 17 because pretty much everybody knew the rain was coming. They couldn’t have thought they would pass their way up and count on the monsoon and the SC to stop the race and change back to wets. Bad strategic blunder again.

But it wasn’t fatal, because as we know Button did the same and still went on to a guaranteed podium.

Massa fusioned bad timing and an own error during the lapping of Karthikeyan. That was fatal from a podium-point of view, but he could even consider himself lucky, he didn’t crashed out altogether when he was a mere passenger in his car for a couple of seconds.

Intermediates on 17th was a childish mistake, but calling both drivers to pits at the same time later on and having FA waiting for Felipe’s change was even worse. And JB deliverately t-boning him LH style was the icing. A horrid weekend for FA but no fault of his own.

As for the pit in the same lap, I’m not sure if that wasn’t the best solution. Maybe Alonso would have lost more time with another lap on the wets. (Well, in hindsight we know it could have spared him from a DNF, but anyway..)

But yes, maybe the call on inters was the team’s decision, and Fernando was not at fault. It wasn’t that important anyway.

And yes, he definitely wasn’t at fault in the collision with Jenson.

So all in all it all went wrong – who knows if he had won in dry conditions. Maybe in Valencia he succeeds.

Lots of Alonso defending here – but isn’t it the case that he should have stayed in the car when he spun out as he could have got a push start given that he was in an unsafe position. It would have saved a safety car and also his race. I’m sure I remember Schumacher exploiting his knowledge of the rules by doing that in the past. I think MB may have suggested that in commentary too.

yes i thought this but he did sit there for a moment and no one went near him so perhaps race control said no.

i have always wondered about this rule, if you are in an unsafe position you get a push start…ok fair enough but to get that push start you need to drag the marshals into an equally unsafe position. That makes no sense to me.

Probably not intentionally.. but Alonso always seems to get the raw end of all the race incidents with Jenson. Last year in Austarlia Jenson spun Fernando around. This year at Australia again he unintentionally almost pushed Alonso onto the grass and made him lose 4 positions or so, and then again in Canada he takes him out of the race. Its incredibly frustrating to watch Fernando go out like that, as I was sure that whatever Jenson did in the race yesterday, Alonso would have done better.

That’s not how Ferrari themselves saw it, nor the stewards… take another look Button ahead front wing and tyres, before Alonso was exceptional late on the brakes, fair play on cold tyres, Button realised and braked hard but under steered off the kerb into Alonso who by this time was again ahead (rear to front with Button) but there was know where for Button to go… racing incident, it doesn’t matter how many times you look at it, and that was the decision.
Shame I would of like to of seen what Alonso could of done on the slicks.

Im pretty certain if thats how Fernando saw then he would have been very vocal about it. And just like in Australia 2010, hes kept quiet, so Im inclined to believe that he perceved that as a racing incident as well.

Agreed on both counts. Alonso’s lack of complaint regarding the incident spoke volumes, and he was extremely late on the brakes after JB was beside him. If you watch the onboard from Alonso’s car, it almost sounds like he gets back on the throttle in an effort to squirt ahead to grab the inside line at the second part of the chicane. All in all, very unfortunate for us as he would have been a player toward the end of the race.

In my opinion, like in Monaco, again they made the stupid mistake of allowing the drivers to change tires during red flag. I truly don’t understand that rule, as the cars are suposed to be in “parc ferme”. When the red flag was shown, KOB had 1 pit stop and Massa 2. When they allowed them to change tires, Massa`s advantage dissapeared instantly.
In any case, I was very well impressed with Ferrari’s pace. Alonso and Massa were very strong the whole weekend and that could be a good sign for the rest of the season.

Interesting to see Alonso so philosophical after being punted out. He could have won this thing, and it’s extra salt in the would to see the driver who punted him take the win. I also think it’s ironic that Alonso was once penalized for hitting a McLaren and only injuring himself. Now he get’s taken out by one and it’s a “racing incident.”

Think the red cars definitely lacked a bit of luck on the race, but didn’t really seem to help themselves. Massa’s wall incident was amateurish, Alonso’s coming together with Button very avoidable regardless of blame. Weekend to forget.

Advice to Massa: When on slicks never go for the wet part..wait wait wait. there was a tiny thin line of dry and Kart was on it. He could not move, could not Massa boy. YOU should have waited a few seconds.
BTW..don’t try to take back a position by getting into the marbles either.

in this last 2 years Ferrari has had some races to forget after great quallys, we still dont know how far could they have gone in dry conditions or even on this wet race, button made a great race but who knows what alonso could have made in such conditions. Massa proved again to be disasterous a good sign for Ferrari is that When Massas pace is quick they know that they are very strong probably strong enough to win, just like when button is close to Ham we know that Ham has the pace to win.

Khartikeyan was actually quite decent this weekend, only a tenth off Liuzzi in quali and would’ve finished 14th were it not for a time penalty for cutting a chicane.
There is one dry line, Massa knew that. He’d have gotten passed the HRT soon enough, hell he probably could have gotten past on the line he did take since the HRT was slow, Massa just put on a tad too much throttle too early, nobody to blame but himself.
Same for Alonso. Button had the run on him and was level with him in the braking zone, Alonso should have yielded, he knew there wasn’t space for two cars there but decide to try and scare Jenson off and hope he made his car disappear, with disastrous results for both, Alonso out, Button limping back to the pits with a puncture. To call this incident Jenson punting him off is ludicrous.